THE SMOKE STACK MURDERS (Part One)

 ARCHIE ANDREWS . . .

LEADER OF THE ARCHIES! A ROCK STAR WHO'S AT CREATIVE ODDS WITH HIS OWN BAND! CLASSIC, OLD-SCHOOL SOUL MUSIC IS ARCHIE'S PASSION, AND HE'D RATHER NOT PERFORM ANYTHING ELSE.  WITH EACH PASSING YEAR, HIS DESIRE FOR THE ARCHIES TO BECOME A SOUL GROUP GROWS MORE INTENSE!  AS MUSICIANS, THEY'RE MUCH TOO ECLECTIC TO STAY PUT IN ANY ONE GENRE; BUT EARLY IN THEIR CAREER, THE ARCHIES EARNED SOLID SOUL MUSIC CREDENTIALS WITH AN HISTORIC LIVE PERFORMANCE.  THIS IS THE FASCINATING YET DISTURBING UNTOLD STORY OF THAT LONG-AGO CONCERT, AND IT BEGINS . . . FORTY YEARS IN THE FUTURE!

PROLOGUE
"Get Ready!"

It's only one of the most successful bootleg albums ever!  It has even charted on streaming services, but the stats have undercounted the sales figures. Everybody knows that it's probably a Number One record!  Even with no radio support, it's been blasting out of people’s car stereos and iPods, pumping behind DIY videos on YouTube, TikTok Mega and Instagram, rocking the dance clubs and spinning all summer at house, block and circuit parties.

Of course, I’m talking about Smoke Stack, the fabulous album tribute to Motown’s greatest tune weaver, Smokey Robinson. Bootleggers culled it from the unreleased catalogue of The Archies. Their renditions of classic Soul standards like “Goin’ To A Go-Go”, “Tracks Of My Tears”, ”Who’s Lovin’ You?”, "I Second That Emotion", “Ain’t That Peculiar?” and “Get Ready” are fantastic!  So much so that the album is being discussed as if it were legitimate.  In fact, many music critics have already shortlisted it for their 2063 Best of the Year tallies.

But do you know just how old those album tracks are?  Would you believe over seventy-five years old?  Did you know that they’re live-in-concert recordings, remixed to sound like they were made in a studio? And that The Archies were augmented by a thirty-piece Latin big band? I know everything there is to know about Smoke Stack.  The album isn’t new to me.  I was eighteen years old when I first heard it, and I was there when it was recorded!

My name is Margarethe Swift.  No doubt you know me as the widow of singer/songwriter and multi-talented performer Taylor Swift; my late wife was one of the brightest stars of the last fifty years.  If you’re of a certain age, you may also remember Margyee Wenzel, comedian, TV host and movie screenwriter, active during roughly the same time period.  That was yours truly!

 
During my three-decade-long career, I wrote five Oscar-nominated film scripts and one Golden Globe winner, The Eyes of Whoopi Goldberg. However, I’m not known for any achievements in the music field; that was Taylor’s world.  So you’d never guess that I had anything whatsoever to do with The Archies!  Yet I do have a history with them.  In fact, I'm one of a few people who can say I knew The Archies before they were The Archies.

POP CULTURE CANTINA

presents
A MARVELOUS LIE PRODUCTION
"THE SMOKE STACK MURDERS"
A Graphic Novelette in Six Parts
featuring the Songs of
SMOKEY ROBINSON

PART ONE

"Goin' To A Go-Go!"

THE TIME: THE YEAR 2063

(with flashbacks to the years 1987 and 1990)
THE PLACES: NEW YORK CITY and HAMBURG
THE NARRATOR: MARGYEE WENZEL

If you listen close enough, you’ll hear what’s left of my German accent.  I was born in Hamburg, Germany, and I lived there until I was 16.  My mother, Mimosa Vanhorne, worked in the entertainment field.  She was an impresario who presented stage and TV productions; Mama also helmed a couple of movies.

 
One of them was called Ringo, I Love You. It was a fantasy about a girl who had a love affair with Ringo Starr at the height of Beatlemania. Mama filmed it in 1987, with actress/supermodel Katy Keene in her first starring role.  Back then I was an ambitious teenager, starting to think about having an entertainment career myself.  Making films was a definite possibility, and Mama encouraged me. I was more or less her production assistant on that picture.

She auditioned musicians to play The Beatles, and bands came from all over Europe to try out.  One group came from America; they called themselves The Juggz. Juggy Jones was the bass guitarist, and he sang lead.  Archie Andrews played lead guitar and sang harmony. Reginald "Gino" Mantle was the drummer, and Dilton Doiley switched between keyboards, rhythm guitar and percussion.  Dilton was a musical wunderkind, as well as the band’s music director.

  
Now, I’ve always been a Lesbian but even so, I thought those boys were as cute as could be!  Not Mama, though. She told me The Juggz were the ugliest boys she’d ever seen! Not to be crude, but the word she used was fugly!  She couldn’t believe they had the nerve to audition, and she wasn’t even going to let them until I begged her to give them a chance.

They turned out to be the best musicians by far, and you could almost hear The Beatles when they played.  Those excellent music skills are what finally convinced Mama to hire them; but no way were they going to appear in her film!  She ended up recruiting four non-singing actors to play the parts. The Juggz agreed to supply the soundtrack music, which the actors lip-synched to.  It was more expensive to split the duties, but Mama just couldn’t find that all-in-one package she wanted! There were lots of good-looking guys in other groups that auditioned, but none of them sounded like The Juggz.

Even though I was only fifteen, Mama gave me lots of responsibilities on that film set. I ended up being the one who worked most closely with Juggy, Archie, Gino and Dilton, and we all got to be good buddies.  I was obsessed with everything American, and I just about drove them crazy with my questions!  By the time they finished recording the movie soundtrack, I knew that whatever career path I chose, I would follow it in the USA.

  
Two years later, I emigrated.  At first I stayed with some relatives in Philadelphia, but that didn’t last long. I knew I needed to be in New York City where everything was happening!  So, at age seventeen, I moved there on my own and began a long period of hustling and scuffling.  Happily, it ended with me becoming a successful stand-up comic.

There were several pit stops along the way, though, and one of them was hiring on as personal assistant to an already established comedian; her name was Hudson Beecher. She isn’t remembered today (at least, not as a comedian) but back then, Hudson was a hot new up-and-comer. The former Hud Beecher was also a pioneer: One of the very first transsexual comedians to become successful.

 
After I started working for Hudson, she got booked to open a music festival at the Apollo Theater. That’s where I renewed my acquaintance with The Juggz! They were one of the festival’s headliner acts; only by then, Dilton was gone and two female members had joined. The Juggz were now known as The Archies, and the previous year they’d bagged a worldwide hit single. I never realized that the band that recorded “Sugar, Sugar” was the same one I’d befriended in Hamburg!  Archie and Juggy recognized me right away, and we had a joyful reunion.

SOUNDTRACK RECORDINGS FOR THE FILM

RINGO, I LOVE YOU WILL GET A BELATED 
RELEASE IN THE YEAR 2032

Since I last saw them, their world had turned upside-down but mostly in a good way.  When The Juggz left Hamburg, I remember the boys being kind of demoralized. The film Ringo, I Love You was a flop so the soundtrack album never got released! The boys suffered one setback after another in Germany: They'd come over from America to play a summer-long gig at the legendary Star Club; however, the club closed, their gig was cancelled and they got stranded in a foreign country! Their work on Ringo, I Love You earned them plane fare back home. The Juggz wanted success very badly but weren’t sure if they had much of a chance.

 
Getting involved with Rock impresario Don Kirshner in 1988 is what finally put them on the right track.  He had a vision for the group that clashed with their self-concept, but with his guidance the renamed Archies were able to realize their enormous potential.  He totally revamped them: Kirshner designated Archie the group's lead singer, paid for him and Juggy to get nose jobs ("he thought we looked too ethnic," they told me), made Juggy and Gino switch instruments, and replaced Dilton Doiley with Veronica Lodge and Betty Cooper.

 
Dilton was the one member that Don Kirshner didn't want to sign a contract with, so he bowed out of the group. "I threatened to leave if Tony couldn't be with us," Jughead recalled, "but dude talked me down! This was our big break, and he didn't want to be an obstacle. That was a tough decision to make!" Why was Dilton pushed aside? This was a sensitive topic; nobody really wanted to discuss it when I asked. However, I gathered that his physical appearance didn’t fit the visual image that Kirshner wanted to project: he wore thick eyeglasses and was very short and nerdy-looking.  He looked more like a stereotypical cyber-hacker than a rocker!

Dilton Doiley (who later adopted the surname “Briseño” after reclaiming his Mexican heritage) was an amazing musician and musical arranger.  He later became a top record producer!  That boy was proficient on just about any instrument you could name; but Don Kirshner didn’t worry about losing his level of talent. He had access to top Hollywood session musicians, and they augmented The Archies when they went into the studio.

 
The most important session players were arguably Ron Dante and Toni Wine. "They're our voice coaches," Archie told me, "and they also sing background vocals for me and Roni." Later on, Dante and Wine would produce The Archies, too, but their first producer was the great Jeff Barry. Veronica raved about him! "Back in the Sixties," she said, "Jeff cut massive hits with acts like The Dixie Cups, The Shangri-Las, The Monkees and Neil Diamond. He also worked closely with the notorious Phil Spector!" Barry's catchy original songs landed the group on the Pop charts with their very first release. Two singles later, he gave The Archies “Sugar, Sugar”, the song that catapulted them to international stardom!

All the while, they were college students. You often hear that The Archies were a teenage, high school band but that isn't true!  Archie, Juggy and Gino were freshmen on summer break when I met them. By 1990, when they played the Apollo's Motown Festival, The Archies were all recent graduates.  In fact, they’d missed graduation ceremonies in order to do the show!  The day after I met her, Betty Cooper gave me all the details: "As you know, Daryl Hall and John Oates were supposed to open the Motown Festival on Monday night.  At the last minute, they had to cancel; we still don't know why.

  
"But you're acquainted with Toni Topaz, aren't you?  She was a high school classmate of ours, and she's one of the festival dancers.  Well, when Toni heard about the cancellation, she immediately got in touch with Veronica. They say opportunity knocks but once, and once is all Roni ever needs!" Betty was in awe of her bandmate's ferocious drive and ambition. "I mean to tell you, honey, girlfriend didn’t waste any time!" she laughed. "She got busy on the phone, booking us for that vacated spot. Our manager wasn’t even involved; Roni made it happen all by herself!" 

Rumor had it that the festival producers weren't crazy about having The Archies replace Hall and Oates. Betty confirmed that those rumors were true but, as she explained: "Veronica has influence and knows how to use it!  After all, she's heir to the Lodge Communications fortune.  Nothing was going to stop her from landing this job: Not only is it great exposure for the band, it's a dream gig for her boyfriend, Archie.  To a Soul music fanatic like him, the most exciting thing in the world is to play the legendary Apollo Theater!"

 
Betty assured me that the rest of group was just as excited, but there was a big problem: The Motown Festival conflicted with Commencement Weekend!  The Archies had to attend rehearsals and costume fittings, learn their concert repertoire and even some choreography. No way could they do all that and attend graduation ceremonies, too.

Gino flat-out refused to participate! He'd been a troubled teenager with a criminal record but in college he turned his life around.  Now he was graduating with honors from Yale, and his family would’ve been heartbroken if he’d missed that procession. The other band members’ parents weren't exactly happy, either, but according to Betty, they all understood what a once-in-a-lifetime chance this was.

"I mean, The Archies are going to join a roster of legendary Apollo veterans," she enthused, clearly star-struck as she called their names: "Sammy Davis, Jr!  Jackie Wilson!  Aretha Franklin!  James Brown!  Ray Charles! The Temptations!  Diana Ross and The Supremes!  And as iconic as those performers are to us, they're even more so for our folks.  They grew up listening to them!" 

So Archie, Betty, Roni and Juggy arranged to receive their degrees early, and then they piled into their tour bus and headed down to Harlem. They all attended college in New England, so the drive to New York City only took a few hours. Their touring music director Chuck Clayton came down with them; he subbed for Gino at the show.

IN 1989, RECORDINGS BY THE JUGGZ 

SURFACED IN EUROPE FOR THE 
FIRST TIME

END OF PART ONE

Click here for Part Two:
"My Girl"